Why the Caribbean Demands Reparations From King Charles

King Charles arrived for a nine-day tour of the Caribbean on October 27—and some want his wallet open. Demonstrators, activists and even government officials are using the trip to demand Britain pay reparations for the slave trade.

• “Pay us what you owe us!” one demonstrator cried out as the king arrived in the Bahamas.
• Commonwealth Secretary General Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey said the “time has come” for a discussion about reparations before the trip.
• Caribbean politicians plan to raise the issue at a Commonwealth Heads of Government summit next week.
• Jamaica’s culture minister led a delegation to London last month to file a petition calling for reparations. The Privy Council will discuss the matter next spring, and it could conclude that the nation has a legal obligation to offer a “remedy.”
• The United Nations General Assembly supported a resolution in March encouraging Western nations to pay reparations.
• The Church of England has dedicated $134 million toward reparations, even while it is closing churches and “heading for financial disaster,” according to one recent report.
• A 2023 report concluded that over $100 trillion was owed in reparations, with Britain’s share at $26 trillion. That’s about the same as 15 years’ worth of British government spending.

This once-fringe idea is a very real force. But it remains as illogical as it ever was. So why is it gaining traction?

Who Should Pay?

Slavery was a crime, and there are several guilty parties—those who captured and sold slaves, those who transported and traded them, and those who used them. Demands for reparations focus mainly on those who transported the slaves. But what about those who sold people into slavery in the first place?

European slave traders did not land in Africa, capture natives, then carry them into slavery. Entering Africa was close to a death sentence for Europeans; the majority died of tropical diseases in a matter of months. The last thing they wanted to do was explore Africa looking for slaves. Instead, they bought slaves from local African rulers and warlords.

If reparations are due, shouldn’t the descendants of those who captured and sold slaves pay? This would mean some of the poorest nations on Earth would have to compensate people a lot better off than them.

And what of the larger and longer-lasting Arab slave trade? Where are the demands for Turkey or Saudi Arabia to pay reparations to those trafficked by their ancestors? Or native tribes that raided slaves from other tribes and even used them as human sacrifices?

Debt Paid

At what point does the statute of limitations run out? Do the Scandinavians need to compensate those abused by the Vikings? Italy must surely have one of the largest bills to pay, given that the Roman Empire was a massive slave empire.

Soon everyone would be left paying everyone else—except for the one major power that has already paid its dues: Britain.

The British Empire atoned in blood and gold for its sins unlike any nation in history. Freeing slaves wasn’t a side project, PR exercise or minor expense, like modern nations that virtue signal by donating foreign aid. It was a core mission for the empire at the height of its power.

By some estimates, 17,000 Royal Navy sailors died fighting the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Over 150,000 slaves were freed. That’s a loss of one sailor for every nine slaves. Of course, that doesn’t include the slaves who were never captured or shipped thanks to the Royal Navy’s efforts.

From 1808 to 1867, Britain’s campaign against the slave trade cost it an average of nearly 2 percent of national income every year. Once the trans-Atlantic slave trade was shut down, Britain’s entire Africa policy was centered around ending the Arab slave trade in East Africa.

So why do demands for reparations center around the one nation that already tried to make amends?

Robbing the Poor to Pay the Rich

An inconvenient truth for the reparations movement is that the descendants of those taken into slavery are better off than the descendants of those left behind. In fact, as Bruce Gilley points out in his book The Case for Colonialism, you didn’t have to wait generations before people were better off. Life in the 17th century was pretty miserable in a whole lot of places. Black slaves in America were healthier, on average, than working-class whites in Europe.

None of this makes slavery good. It was a horrific crime. But it does raise questions about the logic of reparations. Does giving monetary compensation to the descendants of slavery’s victims make sense when those descendants already have more material wealth?

Modern Reparations?

Meanwhile, slavery is more widespread than ever, with an estimated 50 million enslaved. Many of these are victimized by criminal gangs. Slavery is embedded in much of the supply chain; it is a global problem. But when it comes to state-backed forced labor, one country singled out by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur is China, which enslaves Muslim minorities.

The countries King Charles is visiting are close to China, accepting Chinese funding for government buildings and infrastructure projects. In that way, they themselves are currently the recipients of slavery money.

Perhaps they too need to pay reparations for the ongoing harm they are inflicting?

Why the Demand?

For most of history, nations considered slavery fine. The biggest irony is that its universal condemnation today is a testament to the lasting success of British imperialism, which made traditional British values of personal rights and limited government the norm worldwide. Without the British Empire, not only would the slave trade still exist but the demand for reparations would not.

The reparations movement is partly an attempt by poorer nations to get money from richer ones. But it is also an attack on the same values that led to the abolition of the slave trade.

This explains why the demand for reparations is so popular on the left. The prosperity of first Britain, then America, is a major problem for their worldview. The standard explanation is that property rights and the rule of law, equality before the law, etc., are key ingredients of prosperity. When people are sure of keeping the fruits of their labor, they’re more likely to innovate, work hard, take risks and produce in ways that benefit all of society. A slave, by definition, does not benefit from the fruits of his labor, and his deprivation of freedom is a great crime.

But the left rejects these values. Communism is built on a foundation of coercing labor without compensation. So the left needs a new reason for the success of Britain and America. Under this view, these nations didn’t have unique values. Instead, they were uniquely evil. They didn’t generate wealth; they stole it.

Attack on the Bible

But there is a much deeper objective behind the demand for reparations than to tarnish the enemies of communism. Where did the values that made Britain and America great come from?

The Bible is the oldest document to espouse the rule of law. Even in other ancient texts, such as the law code of Hammurabi, it is taken for granted that the ruler is not subject to the same strictures as the ruled. That’s not so in the Bible, where the king had to write out and obey the book of the law (Deuteronomy 17:18-19).

The idea that men have equal rights comes directly from Genesis 1:26-27, which says all men are created in God’s image. Other religions teach otherwise. In Hinduism, for example, social classes (marked by different skin tones) are born from different body parts of the creator. They are not equal but ranked in a hierarchy. The Dalits, or untouchables, are believed to be created separately and often live in slave-like conditions, which many believe is sanctioned by their religion.

Property rights follow: God’s command of “thou shalt not steal” applies to all men.

Many people want to deny the role of this Bible-based thinking in national and individual success. The reparations movement helps them do that.

This objective is shared by the whole anti-colonialist movement. Instead of seeing these values as benefits shared by British colonizers, the movement sees them as curses imposed on top of better, indigenous values. The fact that these indigenous values kept societies impoverished while British values brought wealth is ignored.

Why the Link?

But this raises another question. Why did the political philosophy springing from a small island in northwestern Europe have this unique link to the Bible?

Some connect it to the Protestant Reformation, with its emphasis on reading the Bible in an individual’s native tongue, without the filter of a Catholic priest. There’s some truth to that, but the Bible was available in the vernacular in other regions too. And many of these ideals of individual liberty were highly esteemed in Britain long before the Protestant Reformation. The lucrative slave trade in Bristol, for example, was shut down by William the Conqueror in the 11th century, after pleas from Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester and Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury.

Clearly there must be an older link.

This question of the link between Britain and the Bible is one of the most important questions anyone could ask. Understanding that link helps reveal God’s hand in world affairs and world history. It unlocks the understanding of what the Bible says about modern nations.

It is a link revealed in Herbert W. Armstrong’s free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy.

It shows why Britain and America have a history with God, and where these core values came from. Of course, in British and American thinking, many of these biblical values have been mixed with human ideas. Nor have these values been implemented perfectly. But the success of nations that have, at least at times, implemented some of these values points you back to the Bible.

The reparations movement instead argues that Britain and America’s values are evil. It’s an attack on biblical values and ultimately on specific Bible statements about the world today.

Following this thread of British history will lead people to God. God told Israel in the Old Testament:

Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?
—Deuteronomy 4:5-8

Britain and America have done this, in a limited way. Had the nations obeyed all of God’s laws, instead of merely sticking with a few principles for a time, the signpost to God would have been much clearer. But it’s enough of a link to come under attack.

Demands of the King

It’s also worth noting that these demands for reparations focus on the King, not the prime minister. In part it is because the royal family personally benefited from the Royal African Company, which traded slaves.

But it’s also because the British royal family has a connection to the Bible and to God.

Our free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy reveals the full connection with God. It shows why the principles these nations embraced led to success and how powerfully and specifically the Bible dictates the success of nations. It shows why these values ended up in northwestern Europe. It explains why Britain and America became so prosperous while obeying only a small fraction of what the Bible commands. But most of all, it shows that the Bible is an active, living, “now” book of great importance to world history and your world today.